.....Bumpin this one....Lukas never weighed in on whether it was a joke or not.

That may mean that it was...or that it wasn't.....

My partner is signed on to CastrecL, a series of postings that comes directly from its members to your eMail address, and is devoted, primarily, to Broadway Original Cast recordings, with a lesser interest in film musicals.

Several weeks ago one of the members asked about the RHINO release of the "complete" soundtrack to HIGH SOCIETY, which had been announced around the middle of 2008, and a month-or-two later was then "unannounced".

Max Preeo, the former editor of the defunct SHOW MUSIC magazine, is one of the key authorities in this group, and he said recently, in effect that, RHINO had INDEED cancelled the release, BUT, that you were not to worry, there was something happening, but that he could say no more.

Putting two-and-two together, with Lukas' offhand remark, and Preeo's veiled comment, and Lukas' tie to Warner/Rhino and Turner, and the Sinatra estate's allowing of the Rhino boxset of soundtrack performances from the vaults, and Lukas' tight-lipped reaction to this whenever it's been brought up, I can only conclude that Lukas is working on HIGH SOCIETY.

I will personally buy this and ANY releases of musicals available to Lukas and selected from the vaults of MGM, Warner Bros, or RKO.

For any other producers who are interested, I will also buy ANY releases of musicals available to them, selected from the vaults of Columbia, Universal, and Paramount.

Several weeks ago one of the members asked about the RHINO release of the "complete" soundtrack to HIGH SOCIETY, which had been announced around the middle of 2008, and a month-or-two later was then "unannounced".

Max Preeo, the former editor of the defunct SHOW MUSIC magazine, is one of the key authorities in this group, and he said recently, in effect that, RHINO had INDEED cancelled the release, BUT, that you were not to worry, there was something happening, but that he could say no more.

Putting two-and-two together, with Lukas' offhand remark, and Preeo's veiled comment, and Lukas' tie to Warner/Rhino and Turner, and the Sinatra estate's allowing of the Rhino boxset of soundtrack performances from the vaults, and Lukas' tight-lipped reaction to this whenever it's been brought up, I can only conclude that Lukas is working on HIGH SOCIETY.

Those Sinatra tracks from the film sounded pretty good in the Rhino "Sinatra in Hollywood" set. The treatment of the music in the film is one of the things Goldwyn got indisputably RIGHT, except for the missing songs, of course. --But even some of those found their way into the underscoring . . .

Those Sinatra tracks from the film sounded pretty good in the Rhino "Sinatra in Hollywood" set. The treatment of the music in the film is one of the things Goldwyn got indisputably RIGHT, except for the missing songs, of course. --But even some of those found their way into the underscoring . . .

Alas....I know NOTH-INK! Just wildly speculating what the "classic" musical might be in a vein other than those already mined.

They could STILL issue an expanded SILK STOCKINGS. I purchased the Rhino version specifically for the great track, " Too bad you can't go back to Moscow " and (YUCK !!!) this CD features a much inferior alternate-take. The original apparently no longer exists and they didn't bother to include the music direct from the soundtrack. For me a BIG disappointment !

About 10+ years ago someone put out a boot of the film's soundtrack in stereo, taken, of course, from the FILM'S soundtrack, not the music session masters.

Considering its fame, and the fame of its composers, in the history of Hollywood, Samuel Goldwyn Productions has had next to no original soundtrack material released from its films, despite its lauded sound department.

There was the HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN Decca album, which is, essentially, a re-recording; there are the 4 Marlon Brando-Jean Simmons soundtrack selections from GUYS AND DOLLS originally on a Decca 45, there is the Columbia soundtrack album from PORGY AND BESS, and there is Screen Archives' THE BISHOP'S WIFE cd, taken from acetates and music/fx tracks.

In addition to these few, there was a white-covered "promo" lp, with Goldwyn's face embossed very elegantly on it, which featured music from Goldwyn films, and which was produced to promote the release of the Goldwyn films library to TV. I think this may have been made up in the late '60s-early'70s, and the music (all in mono) appears to have been taken from the original session masters. On this there is an edited collection featuring GUYS AND DOLLS, one of HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, and a grouping of "hit" Goldwyn songs including "My Foolish Heart" and "The Moon of Manakoora".

Otherwise, that's it.

Right next to the Goldwyn/United Artists studio on Santa Monica was a much smaller studio, originally built by Grand National Pictures in the '30s. Later, it became the studios of, successively, PRC Pictures, Eagle-Lion Pictures(US) and Enterprise Studios, and, later, ZIV Television.

Hugo Friedhofer once told me that in the final years of this old Grand National lot, in the '50s-'60s, most of the Goldwyn manuscript scores were dumped/stored there, along with remnants of other departments, including sound.

It was my impression from years ago that the eventual sale/destruction of the Grand National lot (now a shopping center), and the disastrous fires on the Goldwyn lot at the start of PORGY AND BESS, destroyed much of the archival Goldwyn material.

If there was anything left after these years, successive owners of the Goldwyn library, from the estate, itself, to Sam, Jr., to Metromedia, to MGM/UA, to the current MGM Entertainment, put little or no money into restoring or saving these other materials. I've long suspected that virtually all of the Goldwyn music library has disappeared, other than the music/fx tracks which were saved, and were occasionally trotted out for laser and dvd "extras". But, perhaps Ray Faiola, who did the superb work on the BISHOP'S WIFE cd can give encouraging news otherwise.

I once talked to one of the people in charge of the Goldwyn library in the '70s. I had the complete Vitaphone sound discs for one of Goldwyn's 1928 films---and these were the only copies of the soundtrack known to be in existence anywhere in the world. I offered them the use of the discs to make a copy for their library. They were simply not interested.

Such was the management of this great library after Samuel Goldwyn died. He had poured his own money into all of his pictures, and ALWAYS stood for a quality product, both creatively and technically. He would have been greatly saddened by the way his pictures have been treated since.

There are many wonderful scores in Goldwyn films, from Newman to Friedhofer, to Danny Kaye musicals to Eddie Cantor musicals. It's a real shame we've never had much of this material available to us.

Since this lengthy thread has been running for quite some time, I find it fascinating that our Mr. Lukas---who doesn't do "regular" musicals---hasn't weighed-in and said, "FSM doesn't do regular musicals. I'm not working on HIGH SOCIETY."

Don't you find that fascinating too?

(I have my $20 set aside for HIGH SOCIETY, whenever Craig announces it's available at SAE. Do you think it will be FSM 12-12 or 12-15??? And, with a liner notes thanks to Nancy, Tina, and Frank,Jr. Sinatra! )